EXAM DIARY:Bill Cullen is right – it is a long way from 'Penny Apples'; Irish and politics prove to be a great mix, writes JESSICA LEEN

SO HERE’S my big idea.

It’s an alarm clock for students who have just finished the Leaving. It wakes you up for breakfast at lunchtime. It alerts you to all the worst and most low- brow programmes on TV and connects your face directly to Facebook so that you can update your status by electrical signal while you sleep.

Well, they make greeting cards for Leaving Certs now, so why not customised gifts?

Do you think I’d survive the Dragons’ Den? I certainly hope so. It was programmes like Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice that lured me into studying business and now I’m wondering what the hell I was thinking. The business exam is my business today.

But I barely scraped 50 per cent in the mocks and I spent all weekend trying to link this chapter with that, oranges with Penny Apples in the big blender of my brain.

The resulting smoothie blended into a dream of Bill Cullen as I fell asleep at the desk.

I slept a full 12 hours on Saturday night as Cullen fired me over and over again.

After slaying only three days of this crazy exam dragon, I am exhausted and delirious.

I’m already planning my après-Leaving routine – waking up when my eyes open. Plugging my guitar directly into my ear.

I did take a little time at the weekend to check out the extensive sporting menu on TV. I have a Cork heart but Kerry blood, so the feeling I had while watching the Kerry and Cork match was something between indigestion and pins-and-needles.

So, feeling queasy, I switched over to watch the US play England in the World Cup.

I really wish I hadn’t. Now on top of the image of Bill Cullen pointing a squat finger at me, I have the drone of a million bees ringing in my ears.

For the rest of my life when I hear a vuvuzela, I will think of Leaving Certificate business studies. I’m sure that’s not what the Zulus had in mind.

When I couldn’t franchise another transnational company, I peeped through my fingers at maths and Irish. After Friday’s pummelling I was really unwilling to get back into the ring with numbers.

BUT! Yesterday’s exams were actually great. You know how I feel about maths and I’ve had some trepidation about Irish as well, but they both went really well. Irish was especially accommodating – an essay on politics.

That gives the reader of news an instant advantage. Taoiseach,Tánaiste, Dáil, Seanad, Áras an Uachtaráin. All handily in Irish!

String ’em together with the occasional agus and you’re home and dry!

Well, not exactly. We spent quite a bit of time in class engaged in high-level political discussion as Gaeilge and I’ve oodles of notes giving out about politicians and their wily ways.

I wonder do all the spin doctors know about the bad press their employers are getting in the classrooms of Ireland?

But it turns out I’m like the opposite of England’s Robert Green. He saved his very very worst goalkeeping for the World Cup. I saved my very, very best Irish essay for the Leaving.

Mind you, I didn’t have a million bees to contend with.

Jessica Leen is a student at Christ King secondary school, Cork